Page 12 - GALIET THESMOPHORIAS and Euphorias IV

Galiet & Galiet
language is capable of reversals, so are women and men: this is where Aristophanes’ pebbling undercurrent sings. What is then his real agenda in the Thesmophoriasuzae? Nothing short of a socio-political revolution: women ought not to be “seen”, they ought to be “heard.”
According to the respective remarks of Mac Dowell, Taaffe and Slater,3 three well-respected critics, the Thesmophoriasuzae is a play whose central motif and main function is:
a) pure entertainment;
b) gender role inversion (as objects of vision and desire) and as
metaphor for political upheaval; and c) meta-theatrics and politics
Although I disagree with Mac Dowell and mostly agree with Taaffe’s and Slater's interpretations, I would like to expand on these interpretations by suggesting that in order for Aristophanes to achieve this complex level of tragic gender-role and language-role reversals, he employs serious didactic and comic elements to represent the tragic status of women.
Mac Dowell finds the Thesmophoriazusae to be one of Aristophanes’ plays with the least serious political intent, a play mainly to be enjoyed for its sheer comic entertainment, despite the fact that Athens is facing a dangerous political upheaval in the spring of 411. Mac Dowell suggests that Aristophanes perhaps finds it too risky to write a political play under such precarious circumstances: 60 to 90 days before the Four Hundred take power. However, this is highly unlikely since we know that the socio-political play, Lysistrata, debuted on the same transitional year. This play cleverly disguises its political agenda.
3 Mac Dowell, D. “Thesmophoriasuzae”, Ch. 11 in Aristophanes and Athens, Oxford 1995: 251-73.
L. Taaffe, “Men as Women: Thesmophoriazusae”, Ch. 3 in Aristophanes and Women, London 1993: 74-
102 plus notes.
N. Slater, “Cross-Dress for Success: Thesmophoriasuzae”, Ch. 8 in Spectator Politics: Metatheatre and
Performance in Aristophanes, Philadelphia 2002: 150-80 plus notes.
• 12•